A festival premiere used to mean months of waiting for a buyer. These days the pace can be startling. A film plays on a Thursday night, and by the weekend several companies are circling it.
The nine titles below come from the 2026 festival calendar, covering Sundance, Cannes and Toronto. Some sold after a bidding war, and others quietly landed with a specialty label. Each entry notes what the reporting says about the buyer and the timing, and where the timing isn’t spelled out, the text says so.
The Invite
Olivia Wilde and Annapurna Pictures’ Sundance title entered a competitive 72 hour bidding marathon after its premiere, with A24 coming out on top. Neon, Focus Features, Netflix and Warner Bros. all fought for it, and the final bidding reached the eight figure range late on Tuesday night, January 27.
Bidding began at around 10 million dollars. That starting point alone shows how much confidence buyers had in the film once the Park City audience had seen it. It was one of the loudest deals of the 2026 Sundance market.
Leviticus
Sundance also had a horror sale. Adrian Chiarella’s film was acquired by Neon in a seven figure deal that closed on Tuesday, January 27. That’s the same night The Invite was settled, so it was a busy evening for deal makers.
IndieWire’s running list describes it as a queer horror film that landed at Neon in a worldwide deal. It was the company’s second horror deal to come out of Sundance. Genre titles often sell fast at festivals, and this one fit the pattern.
Club Kid
Jordan Firstman’s film became the first big sales story of the 2026 Cannes market. Shortly after its premiere, it reportedly drew offers from Mubi, Focus Features, Searchlight, A24 and Black Bear Pictures, ranging as high as seven and eight figures. Netflix and Warner Bros. Clockwork were also interested, but they dropped out early.
A few days later, A24 acquired worldwide distribution rights for 17 million dollars. That makes it a good example of a deal closing within days rather than weeks. It was also reported as the largest sale of that year’s festival.
La Bola Negra
Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo, known as Los Javis, made their Cannes competition debut with this Spanish language epic. It earned a 16 minute standing ovation at its Thursday night premiere. On Friday, Neon, A24 and Mubi were among the distributors circling the U.S. rights.
Netflix won. The deal was worth around 4 to 5 million dollars, with a multi week theatrical release obligation and plans for an awards campaign. The film later won the TIFF People’s Choice Award, and Netflix is rolling it out in theaters starting October 16 before a December streaming debut.
Gentle Monster
Marie Kreutzer’s Cannes competition entry is led by Léa Seydoux. It marked Netflix’s third Cannes acquisition of the year, after the animated In Waves and the Spanish epic The Black Ball. The sale appears on IndieWire’s list of 2026 Cannes deals, though the sources I found don’t pin down the exact day.
Netflix kept the film in the festival conversation afterward. It was set for TIFF’s Special Presentations section with the rights already secured. For a drama from a director best known for the arthouse film Corsage, that’s a notable level of streamer backing.
Coward
Lukas Dhont’s competition film found a home with Mubi. It was the company’s first North American acquisition since the start of the festival, after it arrived with Minotaur and Fatherland already in competition. That meant Mubi was both programming and shopping on the Croisette at the same time.
The purchase fits Mubi’s long running habit of backing prestige auteur cinema. Specific terms haven’t been made public in the material I reviewed. What’s clear is that the buy came while the festival was still underway.
The Meltdown
Manuela Martelli’s Un Certain Regard title is a Chilean film from the director of the Pinochet era thriller Chile ’76. It was Kino Lorber’s first acquisition from Cannes. Variety’s review framed it as a missing girl mystery that becomes a political allegory.
Kino Lorber is a longtime specialty label, so the pickup is a natural match. It also shows that the quieter sidebars can produce quick sales, not only the competition titles. Release plans weren’t detailed in the coverage I found.
The Dreamed Adventure
Valeska Grisebach, the filmmaker behind Western, brought this film to the Cannes competition. It stars Yana Radeva and Syuleyman Letifov, and it was ultimately awarded the Jury Prize. Janus Films is the listed buyer on IndieWire’s Cannes sales tracker.
Janus is known for restoring and releasing classics as well as new international work. A Jury Prize winner is a natural fit for that catalog. As with a few other entries here, the reports I reviewed don’t give the exact day the deal was signed.
River
Toronto’s Midnight Madness program produced a horror sale this fall. Focus Features and Blumhouse Atomic Monster picked up Joshua Giuliano’s film, with a deal that could surpass 10 million dollars. Metacritic’s festival recap says it was acquired at TIFF for at least that amount.
The buyers are plainly hoping for a repeat of last year’s breakout. TheWrap notes that Curry Barker’s Obsession, last year’s Midnight Madness pick, became the highest grossing festival acquisition of all time. A release date for River hasn’t been announced.
